WEBVTT

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(somber music)

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- My name is Grant
Hendricks, I'm a trooper

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with the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

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I'm at the site of Mariah West's accident.

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Mariah's vehicle traveled
across this median,

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and ended in striking
the bridge that you can

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see behind me.

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When I got to the scene,
her face was disfigured

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from sliding down the roadway.

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It's funny, the first
thing I noticed about her

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was her shoes.

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Lying in the roadway, in
a large pool of blood,

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I noticed her shoes, and I
thought, this is a young girl.

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That's the first thing I
thought when I saw this,

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and at that point is when
I noticed her cap and gown

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was still in her car.

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She was going to graduate the next day.

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It was just a really horrific scene,

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all because of a senseless text message.

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(sighs)

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It's just sad, sorry.

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It's just sad.

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(fast music)

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- Ashley would text hundreds
of messages every day.

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That was the way we kept in touch.

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We would definitely text
more than we talked.

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- [Woman] Mariah was a
multi-tasker, extraordinaire.

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- She could text better
than anyone I know.

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She could be having one
conversation with me,

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completely focused.

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- While having a text
conversation with somebody else.

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- We'd be at school at home,
movies, bowling, driving.

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- Not even looking at her phone.

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- It didn't matter where we were,

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we were constantly texting.

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This is my sister.

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She was looking at my message
that I had just sent her.

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When she looked up, she
had clipped the median

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on the left hand side of the road.

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Her truck flipped, and as it was flipping,

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she was actually ejected
through the driver's side door,

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and she landed in the ditch
about 300 feet from her truck.

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(somber music)

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People will tell you over and over again,

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it's not your fault,

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but knowing that you were
the person that she was

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talking to when she was killed.

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Just knowing, having a
highway patrol officer

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write in a report that a
text message sent at 12:05

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is the reason that she
is dead is not something

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that will ever go away.

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If I could talk to her one
last time I would just say

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I'm sorry.

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(somber music)

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This is her cell phone that
she used in the accident.

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Four little letters.

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That's what killed her.

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- She paid the ultimate
price for her actions.

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I've had to do this more than once.

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Mariah's not the only
victim that I've dealt with,

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and it never gets any easier,
and it won't get any easier.

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What is worth losing your life over?

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That text message?

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(melancholy music)